Top 50 Companies for Executive Women 2011

Women are slowly but surely breaking through the glass ceiling, and there are certain companies that definitely stand out from the rest when it comes to helping female execs climb the corporate ladder.

The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), annually recognizes organizations whose policies and practices encourage the advancement of women's careers with their Top 50 Companies for Executive Women list. This year, they report a milestone: "At our winning companies, women are running 23 percent of the operations that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue."

Search Jobs

At the companies that made the top 50 list, women hold 23 percent of board seats (versus 16 percent at Fortune 500 companies) and represent 14 percent of CEOs (versus 2 percent of all companies nationwide). According to NAFE, "the winning companies are advancing women whose personal brands combine acute business acumen with collaboration, listening and people development."

Some of those assets, characteristic of female leaders, are considered 'soft-skills,' but that doesn't make them any less valuable. "The 'soft' skills were once considered women's tools-those warm-and-fuzzy people skills that were nice to have but unnecessary in the hard-charging, results-driven business world," says Peggy Klaus, author of The Hard Truth About Soft Skills. "Not so anymore. Soft skills are as important, if not more so, as the hard ones, and they will make or break you as a leader."

Those who made the list obviously understand this. Here is a glance at some of the companies honored and what they did to make the list. The full list of 50 companies follows.

Abbott

Abbott's Women Leaders in Action (WLA) is a dedicated program that focuses on the development of women leaders.

Related Articles

Add a Comment

1 Comment

Filter by:

Marie

What is happening to the men in America, Are these woman getting these benefits because they earned it or strictly because their women, Thats repeating bad history, The best should get the benefits not the gender or anything else. We are becoming a country where excellence has no place.